Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system, a document management server, a document managing method, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
There has been an increase in the speed of network lines and improvements in grid-computing technology due to the development of network infrastructure. Consequently, there has been proposed a cloud computing system as a system for implementing a document management service which performs management of document files and various types of processing on a server computer side. A user accesses a Web page of a cloud service from a browser on client computer via Internet so as to upload, download, display, or share document files and form data.
Some of the cloud-based services include a microblog function. A microblog service provided by the microblog function is one of communication services. A user who has an account with the service can post a short message to a server having the microblog function. A unique identifier is assigned to each posting. A posting by the user himself, a posting by another user who has “followed”, and a posting to a group to which the user belongs are displayed on a user-dedicated Web page called “timeline”, so that communication via follow-up or group interaction can be made.
The term “follow” refers to register another user so that a posting by another user can be displayed on his/her own Web page. The term “group” refers to a user group classified into users who share common properties such as organization to which they belong, project in charge to which they are assigned, and the like. A posting to a group is only displayed on the Web pages of the users who belong to the group. For example, Chatter of Salesforce.com is responsible for the microblog service as described above.
Also, in the aforementioned document management service, interaction with other services is becoming increasingly important, and the presence of a document can be reported to other users by posting URL information for access to the document and information for sharing the document to a microblog service. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-63808 discloses a system in which, when an image is stored in a server prior to user registration processing, the image is stored in a temporal storage server with the image linked with a temporal user ID and data of the image is transferred from the temporal storage server to an image upload server upon registration of a user ID.
An information processing system in which a document management server having a document management function interacts with a posting management server having a microblog function (posting management function) is contemplated. For example, the document management server is comprised of three cloud service servers: a document sharing server, an authentication server, and a document generating server, and the document management server includes a document generating server and a document sharing server having a document sharing function.
When a document generating instruction is issued by a user, the document generating server generates a document and then transmits an operation selection screen to the user. When the user selects a sharing destination group for the document on the operation selection screen and presses a document sharing button, the document generating server accesses an authentication server to confirm user authority, and then transmits the document and a document sharing request to the document sharing server.
The document sharing server stores (registers) the document in accordance with parameters included in the document sharing request, issues a URI for accessing the document, and returns the URI to the document generating server. The document generating server posts the URI as the user to the posting management server. A posting destination at this time is a group on a microblog service selected by the user on the operation selection screen of the document generating server. When another user who belongs to the same group presses the posted URI, the authentication service provided in the document management server executes authentication processing, and the user accesses the document sharing server. When the user who has accessed the document sharing server is a user who has granted access thereto, a preview screen of the document is displayed.
When the document management server having the configuration as described above is provided as a cloud service, a document may fail to be transmitted or registered from the document generating server to the document sharing server. When a user cannot transmit a document to the document sharing server via the document generating server due to failures in the document sharing server and insufficient user authority, the following processing needs to be performed so as not to lose the advantage for sharing the document with other users in the posting management server. Specifically, the document needs to be registered again in the document sharing server at the stage whereat the document generating server temporarily stores the document to make it available for the document sharing server. Thus, when the user cannot register the document as a sharing target in the document sharing server, sharing the document with other users is not realized.
When a user who has generated a document does not have authority to utilize the document sharing server, it is also contemplated that the user may request another user who has authority to utilize the document sharing server to directly submit the document to the document sharing server without intervention of the document generating server. In such a case, a sharing destination group name needs to be stored for use upon registration in order to register the document in the document sharing server with a group intended by the user who has generated the document.